Fabio De Masi had actually ended his political career in 2021 after three years in the EU Parliament and four years as a member of the Bundestag. The former Left Party financial expert, who made a name for himself in the last parliamentary term as one of the chief investigators in the Wirecard Committee of Inquiry and received cross-party respect for this, did not run in the Bundestag elections. But now the German-Italian is back.

Following the official founding of the "Sahra Wagenknecht – Reason and Justice Alliance" (Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht – BSW) at the beginning of January, the 43-year-old was presented as the lead candidate for the European elections in June together with longstanding former SPD politician and Düsseldorf mayor Thomas Geisel. For De Masi, whose political career took off in 2014, particularly in the EU Parliament's Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee (Econ), it is, in his own words, a step "back to the future" – albeit with completely new ambitions: "We are striving to be a people's party in the medium term."

The BSW, which will initially retain this name until the next parliamentary elections, had 44 founding members on Monday. The party will be led by a dual leadership consisting of former Left Party icon Sahra Wagenknecht and former Left Party parliamentary group leader in the Bundestag, Amira Mohamed Ali. Christian Leye, member of the Bundestag, will become General Secretary. A further 450 members are to be admitted this week. The further growth, however, is intended to be cautious and controlled. A first party conference has already been scheduled for 27 January in Berlin.

The BSW intends to wait until the next federal elections to draw up a detailed party programme, but expects to be able to run in the three East German state elections this year. A European election programme is to be submitted shortly. However, De Masi already has quite clear ideas about this. Speaking at the Federal Press Conference on Monday, January 8, he mentioned, among other things, stricter minimum taxation in the EU, the absorption of "excess profits" in the energy sector, a reform of state aid law, greater support for digital infrastructure, as well as diplomatic initiatives in the Ukraine conflict as well as an asylum reform. At the same time, Geisel is once again focussing on the ban on combustion engines.

Fabio De Masi explicitly defends himself against one accusation: he refers to his Italian grandfather, who was once a resistance fighter against fascism. He would never join a right-wing nationalist party. At the same time, he describes the governing coalition as the "harvest hands of the AfD". The "disastrous policies" of the coalition were one of the reasons for his return to politics.